$4.2M road project to slow loop traffic

KAREN SMITH WELCH

Monday

Jan 30, 2012 at 9:41 PM

A $4.2-million construction project beginning Tuesday on the northwest section of Loop 335 includes changes determined in a legal battle between the state of Texas and the property owner more than a decade ago.

Crews will be working to replace a Loop 335 bridge spanning Amarillo Creek and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Texas Department of transportation officials said.

Drivers venturing to Loop 335 between North Coulter Street and Hester Road on Tuesday will find traffic reduced to one lane, a circumstance that will last until late fall, according to information from TxDOT Amarillo district spokesman Paul Braun. Motorists can expect short delays as they stop for a traffic signal that will give access to the bridge, alternately, to east- or westbound traffic.

The project also will include construction of an access road on the south side of Loop 335 from North Coulter Street east to the railroad tracks, Braun's information said.

The frontage road to be built will provide access to property south of the loop and east of North Coulter, said Tracy Cain, director of transportation, planning and development for TxDOT's Amarillo District.

"There was a (court) judgment against TxDOT, and that judgment is part of the reason this project's being built," Cain said. "This project should correct that access."

Construction of the access road is stipulated in a civil court case the state filed against property owner Chapman Children's Trust in 1995 and settled in a Nov. 16, 2000, agreed judgment in Potter County Court at Law No. 1. Amarillo developer George Chapman, the developer behind the Woodlands residential subdivision near North Coulter and Loop 335, signed the agreed judgment on behalf of the trust.

The state filed the lawsuit in May 1995 to acquire, through condemnation, land for "highway purposes," the court document shows. Two weeks later, a three-person special commission, appointed by the court to hear the dispute, awarded the Chapman trust $170,000 for the land, the judgment states.

The state next filed an objection to the judgment, and the parties later reached a compromise agreement calling for the Chapman Trust to be granted access across the loop both under the railway bridge and at North Coulter when an interchange site had been agreed upon.

Under the settlement, the Chapman trust is to provide all necessary rights of way for one-way frontage roads, a turnaround lane under the BNSF Railway bridge and a future North Coulter Street interchange, with each project to be built by TxDOT at the state's cost.

The improvements are to be built "as needed," the court document states.

Cain said the project getting under way also will "correct drainage concerns" in the area, as stipulated in the agreement. Drainage infrastructure costs are to be borne by the state, the agreement said.

"Both plaintiff and defendant have agreed to work together in reaching an agreement to reduce the flood plain area of the Defendant's remaining property, if in fact there is, or was, a flood problem due to the installation of Loop 335, with the provision that the Plaintiff will pay for all construction within the (right of way) and engineering," the judgment states.

The $170,000 awarded to the Chapman trust was to cover the cost of the property condemned and damages, if any, to the trust's property adjacent to the loop, according to the court document. The trust received its payment in March 1996, the document shows.

The current project is set to be completed by late spring in 2013, TxDOT information said.

TxDOT completed the extension of North Coulter to Loop 335 last year. Long-term planning for the interchange between North Coulter and Loop 335 might eventually include construction of a bridge to carry loop traffic over the arterial street, Cain said.

That project "is not currently funded and it's hard to predict the timing on it," Cain said.

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